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The Urban and Environmental Policy Department at Occidental College are conducting a search for a new colleague: Associate/Full Professor
Green Economy and Environmental Sustainability
Urban and Environmental Policy Department
Occidental College – Los Angeles, California
Deadline for applications: Friday, November 14, 2014

We invite candidates from a range of disciplines, including urban planning, economics, sociology, political science, environmental studies, geography, law, public health, and others. Candidates are expected to hold the Ph.D. degree or terminal degree in their field and have a significant track record of successful research, publication, grant-funded projects, and teaching. We are also open to considering non-traditional candidates with extensive professional and community experience with demonstrated research and teaching but who may not have a Ph.D. or other terminal degree.
As an interdisciplinary department in an urban liberal arts college located in Los Angeles, we are interested in candidates who understand problems such as global climate change as deeply linked with increased inequality and how these stresses exacerbate existing social, economic, and political divisions. Policymakers at local, state, national and international levels face the challenge of developing policies that address existing inequities while simultaneously ensuring a long-term approach to the environmental and economic sustainability that has equity and democratic governance at its core. We want to attract a teacher-scholar who can help students understand the global aspects of our economic and environmental problems and also understand how addressing these problems involves practical solutions at the community, local, state, national, and global levels. At all these levels, the inter-related issues of jobs, community development, the built environment, and natural resources (water, oil, etc) come into play. Central to these concerns is how to create jobs that improve the standard of living without exacerbating environmental harm. “Green economy” and “green jobs” are the concepts typically used that seek to address these concerns. How to develop the built environment – including the location of jobs, housing, and transportation – that can reduce energy use and the negative impacts on the environment and public health are also connected to these concerns.

The ideal candidate will be one who can connect the global and the local and expand our community-based learning and research opportunities for students through courses and conduct research related to the built environment, food systems, green jobs and sustainable development, poverty and labor issues, climate justice, and progressive regional and/or community economic development. We are particularly interested in senior candidates who can help us build our department’s focus on making cities more livable, democratic, and just.

Our new colleague will be expected to teach four courses a year. We are open to our new colleague creating new courses as well as teaching (and revising) some of our existing courses, such as the intro-level Environment and Society (UEP 101), UEP 301 (Urban Policy and Politics), and our two-semester senior comps courses (UEP 410 and 411) in which students undertake a year-long applied research project, often with a community “client” or partner. There are opportunities for team-teaching with faculty within our department and in other Occidental departments. Although we expect our new colleague to develop his/her own courses, we are interested in candidates who can teach some combination of the following elective courses in our department: Community Economic Development, Workforce and Employment Policy, Urban Political Economy, Poverty and Labor, Sustainable/Green Development, Food and Natural Resources, Urbanization and Natural Resources, Climate Adaptability and Resilient Cities, and the Built Environment and Urban Design.

Our new colleague will help further the college’s goals related to urban and community engagement. We pride ourselves on giving our students lots of opportunities for experiential learning and internships. Our department has helped lead efforts on campus, along with the Center for Community Based Learning, to link the college’s academic program with community involvement, including expanding community internships and community-oriented research projects for our students.. Our faculty and students also work with our applied research center, the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute (UEPI). UEPI has a staff of nine researchers and advocates who conduct social justice research and administer programs that advance its social change mission. It has become an institutional hub for many community engagement initiatives on campus, in Los Angeles, and nationally.

The successful candidate would join a strong department with four full-time faculty members as well as affiliated faculty in other departments and practitioners who serve as adjunct faculty who teach a variety of applied courses. The UEP Department has approval to conduct another search, for a candidate at the assistant professor level, in 2015-2016 to begin teaching in Fall 2016. Our new senior colleague will play a role in this search. You can find a description of our department and its existing courses in our catalog at this link: http://www.oxy.edu/urban-environmental-policy.

We seek candidates who will contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through their teaching, research and/or service. US News has consistently ranked Occidental as one of the liberal arts colleges most committed to diversity. We rank near the top of very selective liberal arts colleges in terms of the proportion of students with Pell Grants. We are especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through their research, teaching and/or service.

Submission of Applications
Applicants should submit in electronic form a letter of interest that demonstrates a commitment to academic excellence in a diverse liberal arts environment. That letter should include a statement of teaching philosophy, areas of teaching interest, plans for research, and a statement about how the candidate will support and enhance the College’s goal of building a diverse educational environment for all students; a curriculum vitae; samples of scholarly work; evaluations of undergraduate teaching or other evidence of teaching effectiveness; names of three references.

Please submit these materials to Ms. Sylvia Chico, Search Committee Coordinator, Urban & Environmental Policy Department, schico@oxy.edu. Inquiries about the position can be directed to the search chair, Prof. Peter Dreier: dreier@oxy.eduAll materials are due by 5:00 on Friday, November 14, 2014. We will contact finalists in January to schedule interviews on campus during February 2015.

"Talk of mysteries! Think of our life in nature — daily to be shown matter, to come in contact with it — rocks, trees, wind on our cheeks! the solid earth! the actual world! the common sense! Contact! Contact! Who are we? Where are we?" —Henry David Thoreau